Rabbi Meir Kahane, leader of the Jewish Defense League, definitely will be prosecuted on criminal charges stemming from two unrelated offenses, legal sources told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today. One charge relates to alleged attempts by the JDL to smuggle arms out of Israel for a private war on Arab terrorists in Europe. The other concerns Kahane’s letters to Arab families on the West Bank demanding that they get out of the country because it belongs to the Jews.
A senior official of the Ministry of Justice told the JTA that Kahane would probably be charged under the sedition laws for writing the letters. He said the petition laws, which are part of Israel’s criminal code, preclude sowing hatred between different sections of the population. Attorney General Meir Shamgar, meanwhile, has informed the Cabinet that there are grounds to prosecute Rabbi Kahane on the arms smuggling charge.
The JDL leader visited a Druze newspaper office in Haifa yesterday where he drank a “toast of peace” with a Druze leader who had received one of Rabbi Kahane’s threatening letters. The JDL head said the letter had been sent to the Druze by mistake, but said he stood by his letters to the West Bankers. He stated the JDL had established a fund to aid them in resettling elsewhere.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
